This past week, many of us have been shocked and appalled by the blatant hatred, anti-Semitism, racism, and violence that erupted in the past week in Charlottesville. While trying to negotiate my own aversion to seeing these horrors, yet wanting to stay present and aware, I eventually happened upon this video.
The terrorist acts along with and the sadness and bewilderment of the protesters was so disheartening and deflating and filled me with immense sorrow. Yet for me, one of the most striking elements from this video was the anger and rage that permeates through the white supremacist protesters, as well as an excitement to be able to have an outlet for their immense dissatisfaction in this country, and their blame of others for their troubles. Not that this is surprising, but I also sensed that they felt highly threatened, and ready to fight against losing whatever they feel they should possess.
I imagine that this fear is the fear of loss of power, title, or privilege. Later in the week, I found the same feelings arise when I read about those who felt that the removal of confederate monuments and statues was a loss of history or depriving them of their culture/ southern-pride.
I assume that along with the fear of loss there is a fear of their own disillusionment. It is hard to accept that we are not right, it is hard to apologize, or that even if everything is resisting change it may in fact be better for all to make a change. We may not even want to go through the work of changing ourselves as a part of us knows that it is going to be painful to face our embarrassment and shame about our previous behavior. Therefore, I felt that surrender was an appropriate title to this post.
Sometimes, we must surrender to the reality of the situation and let go of our expectations or fantasies about what would or should be. We need to make space within ourselves to allow for any progression or change. Even though I mostly provide care through individual counseling and coach clients on making themselves a priority/taking themselves seriously, there are times when we must let go of certain things that we may be intimately connected to but are harmful. In all honesty, in my own life I have found that surrendering to the truth can be freeing. This kind of surrender allows us to relax, making it possible to think clearer and divert our energies toward other people and situations in different ways then we could have imagined.
I am trying to avoid making this sound like a lecture, but I truly believe that if others that have racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, and misogynistic views of others it is time to LET IT GO. I believe that deep down we all want a better world for ourselves and the people that we love, and hate stalls any effort for us to collaborate and heal ourselves and each other, not to mention the planet.